Past Sermon

Sermon Title: "No Greater Love"
Date: February 17, 2008
Minister: Rev. Charles E. Ensley, Jr.

Lesson:  John 3:1-17

Sermon request:  "Compare God's love with all the many other kinds of love; such as mother's love, love of country, church, love of sports, food, cars, clothes, celebrities, music, etc."

A sermon request about love during Lent?  Isn’t this a bit out of season?  And three days after Valentine’s at that!  But it’s not really too late, or the wrong season.  I believe if one were to examine the 1364 sermons I’ve preached so far in my ministry, one of the most prevalent themes would be love.  It could be about God’s love for that which God created, God’s love shown in Christ, Jesus’ love and compassion for those he encountered, love for family members, and a general sense of love for those around us.  There’s a song, a round, we sing at camp:  “Love, love, love, love, believers this is my song; love your neighbor as yourself, for God loves all.”

Today we are asked to examine, compare, lay God’s love alongside all the other types of love we know and experience in our lives.  How to compare an intangible love with a love for material objects?

Last Friday night, among the inquiries I fielded in a lightning round of written and verbal questions at the Bay Shore Friends dinner meeting was what I like to do for relaxation.  I heard myself say I “love” to read the newspapers, and I “love” to look at cars.  Now, do I LOVE the newspapers and classic cars, or do I “like” or “enjoy” seeing them?  More likely the latter than the stronger word “LOVE.”

There are many things in life that attract our attention, that we are drawn to, that we can’t get enough of.  For some people it might be chocolate, or a favorite wine, or a passion for watching sports or engaging in a particular sports activity.  We all have some sort of music we prefer over others.  There are those who can’t do without the daily soap operas or the latest mishap of poor Britney, Paris or Nicole.  Some people like to collect things:  antiques, collectible items, jewelry, stamps.  Others have almost an addiction to shopping, or buying a particular item of clothes.  It could be shoes:  a different color and style to go with every outfit.  But do we really “love” all those things, or do we simply have an addiction, attraction, envy, or an enjoyment of acquiring or even just seeing them?

Last summer, one of our vacation trips involved driving up to San Francisco.  Actually, we were going to drive down the coast, but Peggy was indulgent enough to plan the trip for me around a visit to the Blackhawk Auto Museum in Danville.  It wasn’t open early in the week, so she rearranged the trip to drive up the coast, so we could be at Danville on a weekend when the museum was open.  I had been there once before, and remembered how pristine the cars were.  But this time, I noticed they were mostly European cars, one-off models from the ‘30s.  They weren’t as attractive to me as my affection for the great chromed and finned American cars of the ‘50s and ‘60s I grew up with.  You see, I don’t really “love” all cars!

Moving from the tangible to the intangible, we have love of country.  In spite of being aware of social failings, injustices and the inequality which still exists in America, in spite of differences with particular politicians or political parties or whether you’re for or against war in Iraq, with respect for all its progress and prosperity, there is a pride that comes from being an American.  One can say, in the right company (maybe not in Europe!), “I’m from America.”  We are where we are today because of men and women of the past who had foresight for the future of this great land of ours.  They, too, would claim a love, a passion for this country, many of them being immigrants or first-generation Americans. 

Yet a deeper level of love is that which involves human commitment, most commonly experienced in the covenant of marriage.  This involves emotional attraction, physical intimacy, and an ongoing commitment to work out the relationship through all the pitfalls of the familial unit.

The sermon requester cites also a mother’s love, perhaps an even deeper level of love than that of marriage, and perhaps a bond felt more intensely by the mother than the father.  The mother has carried that child within her for nine months, until recent decades not even being aware of its gender until the moment of birth.  A mother can gaze tenderly upon the child at her breast, realizing that little creature grew from nothing the human eye could see into a seven, eight or nine pound miniature person.

Such love is not restricted to mothers who give birth.  An adoptive mother can have just as much love for her child, realizing a birthmother somewhere entrusted that child to a hopefully better future being raised by someone else than her at that particular time in her life. 

Finally, moving up, or down—depending on how you’re seeing this—the levels of devotion, we come to God’s love.  In a Bible concordance, listings for love go on for pages.  In a hymnal index, there is love for God, love to God, love by God, love of Jesus, love for Christ, love for others. 

You may think the only memorable thing from the Last Supper was the meal Jesus instituted with his disciples which we observe every month in communion.  But the root of the word Maundy Thursday is mandatum, translated mandate or command—these words found only in John’s Gospel which Jesus shared with his disciples in the upper room on that last night of his earthly life: 

“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.  If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.         I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.  This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”  (John 15:9-13)

As often as I hear First Corinthians 13 quoted at weddings, although Paul did not have marriage in mind when he wrote it, this passage from John’s Gospel is truly a treatise on love as a basis for enduring human relationships.  That passage incorporates the love that existed first between Father and Son, and secondly between Jesus and his followers.

That love speaks also of sacrifice:  “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”  If you look at this passage chronologically as coming at the end of Jesus’ ministry, then the conclusion of today’s conversation with Nicodemus near the beginning of his ministry foreshadows the end:  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”  (John 3:16)

There can be no greater love demonstrated than for God to give up his own Son, in hopes that all who believed in him may have the ultimate gift of eternal life in God’s kingdom.  One writer, recognizing that all of God’s creations and creatures are not perfect and sinless, has attempted to personalize that familiar passage thusly:

For God so loved the orderly word he created, and all the people in it, even when they have made a mess of things and have violated the orderly arrangements he provided for them, that he gave his only Son, so that everyone, including, of course, me and you and everyone else anywhere who believes in him may not perish but may have the orderliness of righteousness for all eternity.

It’s possible for us to reject God’s love and then perish, because nothing can live forever without the love of God.  But because God loves us, God doesn’t easily let go.  That’s why God sent his Son, and that’s why God follows us through our unfaithfulness, our sometimes mean attitude to one another, our self-centeredness, and even our unholy messes.

That’s because of the way God really sees the world.  God sees us not only as we are, but also as God calls us to be.  Can there be a greater love than that?